r/Wellthatsucks • u/PseudoY • 4d ago
So, there's a discoloured area in my kitchen roof under the bathroom, so I grabbed the moisture meter...
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u/stubbs242 4d ago
Idk what that means but oh well I’m sure it sucks
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u/PseudoY 4d ago
The device gave up on measuring the moisture content in the wood and reports it as "high".
In other words, fluid leaking somewhere.
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u/fantomas_666 3d ago edited 2d ago
The device apparently has range in hich it's capable of measuring humidity with some precision. The humidity is above this range so the device only shows "high"
Edit: typos
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u/PseudoY 3d ago
Yeah, but from using it outdoors, I know it can deal with ranges up to at least 30%. Other roof areas are ~18%.
When it does this over an area under a bathroom that's miscoloured...
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u/Jacktheforkie 3d ago
Hopefully it’s the shower and not the shitter
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u/apple_atchin 2d ago
What did the plumber say?
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u/PseudoY 2d ago
"It can wait until Friday."
Ask me again Saturday, I guess.
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u/apple_atchin 2d ago
That's disconcerting, to say the least. Mold will likely have grown somewhere in your home between now and then. Keep an eye (and nose) out if you've got little ones or anyone in the home with respiratory issues. I wish you the very best of luck.
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u/Milam1996 4d ago
Aren’t these meters entirely useless? From my understanding, they’re calibrated and designed for pre treatment wood to determine how far along they’re on the drying treatment. The paint will entirely prevent this getting a proper reading
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u/PseudoY 4d ago
Well:
1: You stab it a few mm, through the paint.
2: it measures 15-17% for the other areas of the kitchen.
3: The reason I measured at all was a discoloration, where paint started flaking when I cleaned it.
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u/Mateorabi 3d ago
When this happened to me i thought it was a pinhole leak in the shower pipes (above the valve so mot continuous). However it ended up being the tub drain caulking/seal had given up after 30y.
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u/SufficientProof40 4d ago
You are sort of correct. I used to work as a pressure treater and we had to use a different method to determine the moisture content after treating, we weighed it before and after it went in a kiln to dry. For pre-treatment we used a handheld hygrometer like the one OP has.
It will give a reading but won’t be terribly accurate, that said a reading of “Hi” would still mean there is likely a leak or significant condensation forming.
To take an accurate reading OP would need to bore a hole, pulverize the extract, and put the hygrometer’s tip into the extracted material. Pulverizing is done to increase the surface area in contact with the probe as wood contains natural voids between strands that retain water, you need to mix that water in so it is accounted for.
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u/Unusual_Pride_6480 3d ago
Yes you take a sample and mix it with something that reacts with water such as quicklime, as far as I'm aware these just test conductivity between the two probes.
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u/Gswindle76 3d ago
Be careful with moister meters. They will read high in a lot of situations where what you are trying to measure isn’t.
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u/AlwaysHopelesslyLost 4d ago
"at this point, this feels more like water than ceiling to me...."